


lazy summer nights

by serenfire



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Magnus and Alec chill in the summer, Magnus' high heels, Prompt Fill, Summer, and Alec takes out the trash, wearing the only shoes he can find:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 23:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11390436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenfire/pseuds/serenfire
Summary: Alec has worn heels on exactly one occasion in his life—when he went shoe shopping with Izzy and felt unnerved when she bought a pair of shoes that made her taller than him, so he had to retaliate. He had rolled his right ankle walking out of the store and that was the end of that.Alec tentatively stands up in the stilettos. Except for being six inches taller, everything is the same.





	lazy summer nights

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by my sister and [this prompt](http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/124988009000)

A busy summer afternoon fades into a lazy summer night, and the sizzle of the sun on the sidewalks is replaced by steam on windows, gasps of breath echoing into bedsheets and bed frames creaking under an undue amount of weight. The moon shakes off its tethers and shines over the city growing ever closer to midnight, and Alec and Magnus lounge in bed, clothes and sheets strewn all over the room.

“How much time do you have before you have to get back to work?” Magnus asks, his head on Alec’s abs.

Alec reaches for his phone on the nightstand. “Well, no one’s called yet, and if nothing’s happened yet, it will probably be a quiet night for everyone.”

“Do you call what we just did a ‘quiet’ night?”

Alec combs through Magnus’ hair, scrunched in all directions that hair isn’t supposed to go. He could swear that Magnus lets out a purr. “We were considerate to your neighbors.”

Magnus’ ears start to twitch like a cat. “You shouldn’t have been. My neighbors are all too rich for their own goods and act like it.”

“Then should we go again and disrupt their sleep schedules?”

Magnus breathes deeply. “I can bear to wait to disrupt their sleep schedules until later. It’s too hot to do anything.”

“It is,” Alec agrees. “Why doesn’t your apartment have air conditioning, by the way?”

“I’ve been living here since before air conditioning was invented, Alexander.”

“You being old is no excuse to install A/C, Magnus. Especially with your salary.”

Magnus sighs, and Alec finds that he is still stroking Magnus’ hair. Even after a hard day of work, Magnus’ hair, hairsprayed beyond belief to hold it in shape—and it failing after the last round of their shared acrobatics—is still incredibly smooth.

“What am I supposed to do? It’s the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Seventeen. Do I call up my technician and say, ‘Hey, I know it’s not the Forties anymore, but I still don’t have air conditioning in my penthouse.’ And then the technician will say, ‘That’s weird, but I’ll check the public records to see who owned this in the Forties when it was supposed to be installed.’ And then it will be me on the records, and then I’ll have to erase the technician’s memory, and it will be a huge mess…”

“I get it,” Alec says. “But I am seriously sweating here. You sure there isn’t any magic you could do?”

“You sure there isn’t an air conditioning rune you can activate?” Magnus counters. “If I make you cold, then I make the entirety of the East Coast cold. And I’m pretty sure I would get in trouble with that.”

“Well, I might be able to convince the Clave to not press charges if you were doing it in service of the Head of the New York Institute…”

“That’s not who I’m scared to get in trouble with. It’s the fish, Alec. They don’t appreciate their travel plans being abruptly affected by one warlock who didn’t bother to get cold the Mundane way. They want to spend their summer in New York too, you know.”

“Alright,” Alec laughs. “I get it. I’ll sweat silently from now on.”

“Or we could move to your place,” Magnus shrugs.

“Right. Or we could hang out naked in my quarters in the Institute, where my coworkers or worse, my siblings, could barge in on us at any time. Great idea, Magnus.”

“Fine,” Magnus sniffs. “We’ll only hang out at your place when everyone else is away answering an emergency call.”

“Why wouldn’t I be out answering the emergency call?”

“Because you would be taking the opportunity to lounge naked in your own bed with me,” Magnus says like it’s a perfectly reasonable reason for Alec to stay home from a mission.

“Uh-huh.”

“You know what we’re missing here?” Magnus sits up suddenly, his silhouette glowing against the open windows of the bedroom and the city beyond him, the curtains fluttering in the wind that still doesn’t bring any relief to Alec’s plight.

“What are we missing?”

“Summer drinks,” Magnus says. He leans over the bed to the nightstand, opening a drawer and rummaging around. “I have some coconut juice?”

“Why do you have coconut juice next to your bed?” Alec asks even as he takes the can.

“For refreshment.” Magnus taps the side of the coconut juice can and ice frosts over it, the juice turning from lukewarm to cold in a second.

Magnus clinks his can with Alec’s, as Alec gapes.

“So you can’t make me cold with your magic, but you can make my drink cold? That doesn’t sound right,” Alec frowns.

Magnus shrugs. “Magic has complicated rules and it’s hard to quantify exactly why something works and something else doesn’t…”

Alec clinks his can back. As soon as he takes a sip of the coconut juice, he coughs. “Magnus, how old is this juice?”

Magnus shifts uncomfortably. “It has preservatives, it will last forever.”

Alec searches for the expiry date. “Magnus, this should have been drunk by 2008. Seriously?”

“My coconut juice phase was a decade ago. Sue me.” Magnus takes a sip of it and immediately spits it back into the can. “Okay, no, that was bad. That was really bad.” He gives the can to Alec. “Feel free to throw it away in the trash if you want.”

“And you can’t magically throw it away because…”

Magnus grins at him. “Making it cold took it all out of me.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Alec smiles. “Sure, I’ll take out your trash for you. Where’s your trash?”

Magnus’ eyes twinkle. “Downstairs,” he says.

“What?”

“I don’t have a trash can in my apartment. It’s my new fad, trying to recycle everything.”

“And you don’t want to recycle this?”

“Expired coconut juice? No thanks,” Magnus says. “The trash can is just right outside the apartment building. There’s nothing to it, just take the elevator down.”

Alec shakes his head, climbing out of bed and pulling his clothes on. He can’t find his underwear or his shirt, but at least he has jeans and he shrugs on Magnus’ floral silk robe. It’s not until he reaches the front door that he has a more major problem.

“Magnus? I can’t find my shoes,” he calls.

He can hear Magnus’ lazy yawn all the way across the apartment. “Then use mine. I left them by the door.”

“I guess we’re one shoe size apart,” Alec mutters to himself, searching around the door for shoes Magnus had, in usual fashion, kicked off without a care halfway across the hallway.

The only shoes he can find are Magnus’ scarlet stilettos.

“Magnus? Where are your other shoes?”

“No clue,” Magnus mumbles from the other room.

Alec sighs. He could go outside, down the elevator, and outside onto New York streets barefoot and risk getting cut and diseased or worse, or he could wear Magnus’ six-inch bright red heels.

He sits down to put the heels on. Alec has worn heels on exactly one occasion in his life—when he went shoe shopping with Izzy and felt unnerved when she bought a pair of shoes that made her taller than him, so he had to retaliate. He had rolled his right ankle walking out of the store and that was the end of that.

Alec tentatively stands up in the stilettos. Except for being six inches taller, everything is the same.

He has to duck down to clear the front door. It’s midnight outside, and Alec prays he doesn’t run into anyone.

The hallway is clear and he presses the button for the elevator, shifting nervously and trying to maintain balance. From this angle, everything seems just a little bit…off. He can’t reach the button for the ground floor without bending over and has to lean against the wall to not slip and fall, and everything is terrible.

At least he’s helping Magnus out by throwing away his trash, Alec reminds himself.

The elevator dings and the doors open, empty. Alec gratefully tip-toes into the metal box, and as soon as it lurches down to its destination, Alec has to grab onto the handrails to steady himself.

“As soon as this is over, I’m taking these off,” he tells himself.

The elevator dings again, but it’s not the ground floor. Alec has this flashing realization that he will not go unnoticed wearing high heels and has a half second to digest that before an old lady with a walker inches her way onto the elevator, and Alec, attached to the handrail, scoots over to make room for her.

They stand in awkward silence for five floors, but every time Alec looks at her reflection in the silver doors, he can see her staring at his heels.

It just had to be an old lady, didn’t it?

Alec clears his throat. “These aren’t mine. I’m just borrowing them,” he explains.

“Hmm,” she says. “Did you raid your mother’s cabinet?”

Alec looks down at the bathrobe he’s wearing. He doesn’t make eye contact. “No. It’s my boyfriend’s.”

“Hmm,” she says again, and stays silent until the ground floor. As soon as the doors open, Alec runs out in front of her, as fast as the stick heels can take him, out the front door.

He chucks the coconut juice cans at the trash and walks back up to the elevator, checking the hallway to make sure no one is actually there.

“How does Magnus do it?” he mutters. “I mean, he doesn’t care what people think about him, but still. These are excruciating.”

On the way back up, he activates his invisibility rune, just in case of an incident, but the elevator remains empty until the top floor.

Bursting back into the apartment, Alec announces as he kicks off the heels, “I’m never wearing heels again.”

“Really?” Magnus’ voice is closer than he remembers, and he looks up to Magnus lounging in the hallway, still in the nude.

Alec frowns. “Did you get the energy to stand up after I conveniently left to do your work for you?”

Magnus grins, taking his heels back as Alec rips them off his feet. “I got the energy to watch you wobble in my heels, if that’s what you mean.”

“You mean you set me up?” Alec says, trying to sound outraged but not getting there because he should have seen this coming. Magnus placing his heels in a strategic position and then convincing Alec to wear them with an overcomplicated reason sounds exactly like him.

“No, I just asked you to do something, and you agreed, so everything that happened was your decision.” Magnus is smiling, and Alec finds that he, too, has to smile.

“Just this time,” Alec says. “I’m not wearing heels again.”

“Of course.” Magnus takes his hand and drags him by his hand back to the bedroom.

“I’m not kidding! It was very uncomfortable.”

“Hmm.” Magnus looks over him with a critical eye. “We’ll start with two inches to get you ready.”

“Magnus, I was being serious!”

Magnus turns around and kisses him in the doorway of the bedroom. “I’m sure you were.”

**Author's Note:**

> [want to reblog this fic as a post?](http://billpottses.tumblr.com/post/162568371252)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr](http://billpottses.tumblr.com)


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